It has now become known that Electronic Arts (EA) has acquired a patent. It describes a method where in-game purchases in video games become worse if the buyer hesitates too long. Then the good offer is no longer available. The patent was acquired in February 2018 – this was after the shitstorm around microtransactions in Star Wars Battlefront 2.
What is this patent about? The patent is called “Systems and methods for making offers within a game that decrease in value based on prior acceptance of the offers.” (via patents.google.com)
It’s about the idea of making a player a “First Offer.” This has the “best value.” However, if enough other people accept this “First Offer,” then it’s gone and the new offer is worth less.
The offer is supposed to be presented in such a way that the player can interact with it in the game and/or sees how others interact with it. You can practically see how others snap up the offer while you hesitate.
The basic idea is that there is only a limited “supply” of the best offers. Once that is gone, the offer becomes worse: the value of the purchased content decreases or the price increases. However, the potential buyer can see how many of the “best offers” are still available. This creates psychological pressure.
The idea is to get players to accept first offers as quickly as possible by creating an incentive for it.
Originally developed for mobile Facebook games
Where does the patent come from? The patent was originally filed in November 2014. The inventors are four individuals. At that time, they were apparently working for the mobile gaming company “Kabam.” This is indicated by the LinkedIn profiles of two of the mentioned inventors.
Kabam was known between 2009 and 2016 for distributing “Facebook games” and mobile games that often relied on such microtransactions. These systems are called “freemium.”
You can play them for free, but have “premium” advantages if you invest money.
Kabam was acquired in 2017 by Netmarble, a Korean mobile gaming company. In their games, offers can sometimes become “better” the more people buy them.
For example, in Marvel Future Fight, certain microtransactions unlocked additional price tiers that each buyer received retroactively when milestones in purchases were reached.
Microtransaction “from hell”
That’s why it’s delicate: Such an offer that becomes worse over time and expires is meant to create apparent buying pressure and push the player towards something they might not rationally do. It compresses the time to consider the purchase.
Such practices are generally seen as “evil”.
The astonishing thing is that the patent was acquired by EA on February 28, 2018, just after they had their scandal with microtransactions.
There were also angry reactions to similar patents at Electronic Arts. They were supposed to change matchmaking so that players would spend more money.
However, there have been statements from EA in similar cases that they did not use such patents. It is stated that there is no influence on matchmaking or match outcomes in the FIFA series – although many players accuse EA of precisely that under the umbrella term “momentum”.
If EA were to actually deploy such methods, it would surely cause a stir. Especially since the political climate regarding loot boxes has changed and is currently changing.
